Taken

posted Aug 3, 2013, 9:33 AM by David Gerhart

Since about 1850 the concept of the Rapture has existed. But particularly within this generation, we view scripture through the lense of a very muscular latter-day hermeneutic men developed over decades in support of a particular eschatology. (Perhaps most recently given rigorus intellectual treatment by Geisler, for example.) Rapture theory. In the case of the story of the two people in bed, one taken and the two women grinding grain, one taken -- we have always heard it taught that this is picture of the Lord come to "take us home."

Yet prior to this in Mathew 13:24-30 Jesus gave the Parable of the "Wheat and Tares" -- in which He clearly capped the issue -- Saying in his subsequent explanation (13:36-43) that He was the sewer and that the "feild is the world." The seed would be left to grow until the time of the end, so that the seed of the Lord would not be disturbed. Very plainly this is a picture of His Church. And it is not a picture of an interruption of His Church by the Rapture of the Church, and then more seed being saved in the Tribulation.

"And they will weed out of His Kingdome everything that causes evil and all who do evil." Mat.13:42

Importantly the Tares are first "cut down" and destroyed in the fire. Then the "Wheat is gathered" into the Lord's Barn.

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

“It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.

Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”

“Where, Lord?” they asked.

He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.” Luke 17:26-37

Then, it is CERTAIN that those taken are not being lifted to heaven, but carried away to destruction ... where the "vultures will gather."